Balur stepped to the side and raised his torch to a sconce in the wall, lighting another torch, its flames crackling into life and illuminating more of the room.
Cullen slipped past them and walked along the left pathway, taking the torch and lighting others set into the walls.
Light slowly seeped into the chamber. Drem saw that the motionless shapes in the pit were cadavers, piles of skin and bone. Misshapen skeletons with long claws and too many teeth, elongated spines, sometimes a clump of fur.
‘Ferals,’ Utul said.
‘Dead Ferals,’ Cullen said, looking down into the pit with interest. ‘Anything that did walk or draw breath is long gone.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Or long dead.’
A sound drifted out of the darkness.
A scraping and wheezing.
The sound was coming from the pit.
Something crawled out of the shadows, human-like in shape, in that it had a head, two arms and two legs, but there were patches of fur on an elongated skull, its lower jaw was distended, teeth like tusks curling out over its snout, and its hind legs were bunched and misshapen with muscle. With one long-clawed hand it reached forwards to dig into the hard-packed earth and drag itself along. The other arm was twisted tight to its body, like an old, arthritic man’s. It made a snuffling, rasping sound from deep in its throat.
Fen and Ralla’s growling grew deeper, more malevolent.
A Feral, Drem thought, though it didn’t resemble the creatures he had fought in the Desolation. They were all mutated, twisted beings, animals and humans merged with dark magic. But the animal part of most of the creatures Drem had fought resembled wolven. This thing before him looked more as if it had started life as a boar.
‘I’ll put it out of its misery,’ Cullen said, with a grimace.
Before Byrne could say anything, Cullen had jumped into the pit. He threw his torch behind the crawling thing, revealing an empty space behind the creature.
Cullen’s sword hissed from its scabbard.
The thing on the ground had seen or smelled Cullen and dragged itself towards the red-haired warrior. It left gouged tracks in the ground behind it, and in its wake some kind of dark fluid moistened the hard earth.
It crawled to a stop before Cullen, taking deep snorting breaths, apparently exhausted.
‘Poor beast,’ Cullen said.
It sniffed, a wet snorting, its one good arm hovering in the air, its hind legs scrabbling, bunching under its torso.
‘Get out of there, you idiot,’ Byrne called down to Cullen furiously, ‘until we have this room lit.’
‘It’s as weak as a newborn,’ Cullen assured her, eyes fixed on the creature at his feet. The thing looked up at Cullen, then, in a shocking burst of speed, it erupted towards him, hind legs propelling it forwards. Its one good arm wrapped around Cullen’s leg and it sank its tusks into his calf.
Cullen screamed, shock and pain mingled, and he hacked down at the thing. His blade bit, but not as deep as Drem had expected; the thick folds of skin on the creature snared Cullen’s sword. Blood welled.
Byrne was shouting orders as Drem leaped down after his friend. It had not been a conscious decision. His seax and small axe were in his fists, gleaming red and gold in the flickering torchlight as he broke into a run.
Sounds came from the darkness: snorting, scrabbling noises.
Drem heard Byrne’s voice, followed by Balur One-Eye’s battle roar and the ground trembled as the giant jumped into the pit after him. Drem was close to Cullen now and raised his axe as he ran.
Something slammed into Drem’s side, sending him flying through the air. He hit the ground hard, air punched from his lungs, and tumbled with something heavy on him, another Feral – solid, all muscle, coiled strength and a frenzied, ravenous hunger. The sharp stench of urine and blood filled his senses. He struck at it, felt his axe bite, then lost his grip on it as they rolled. He had a glimpse of tusks and rowed teeth, of snapping jaws and fetid breath. Still rolling, he stabbed with his seax, which did better than his axe. He felt the blade pierce the thick hide and sink deep, felt blood well over the hilt, over his glove and soak into his linen undershirt. With a high-pitched squeal, the creature pulled away. Drem yanked on his seax but it grated on bone, was snagged somehow, and the blade was ripped out of his hand.
Drem crashed into one of the cadavers. It exploded, covering him with stinking strips of skin and gnawed bone. He scrambled to his feet, breath heaving, a hot pain radiating from his ribs where the thing had connected with him. There were rents in his mail, rings hanging. In his peripheral vision he glimpsed Cullen still hacking at the creature trying to eat his leg, many more of the beasts attacking a handful of Byrne’s honour guard who had joined them in the pit, and Balur One-Eye swinging his hammer.
Drem realized he was standing a dozen paces from the boar-thing that had attacked him, with no weapons in his hands.
Then it was coming at him again.
Stumbling away, he reached for his father’s sword, sheathed at his hip, had a moment to wish he had a boar spear with a cross-bar, probably the best way to kill one of these things and keep it from goring him with its tusks. His draw turned into an upward cut, the blade’s tip shearing through the beast’s lower jaw, cutting through one tusk and up, through its cheek and on, carving through its brain and exploding from its skull in a spray of teeth and blood, brain matter and fragments of skull. The Feral’s charge powered it on a dozen paces before its body realized it was dead and it crashed to the ground, skidding to a halt.
Drem had half a heartbeat to stare at the dead Feral before another one crashed into his legs, hurling him into the air. This one was bigger. Its momentum carried it on beneath him as Drem slammed into the ground behind it, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as he started to rise. The beast skidded, already turning, its feet scrambling for purchase on the bones and carcasses scattering the cavern floor.
It came at him again, snorting and squealing, tusks gleaming. Drem desperately tried to lever himself upright with his sword, knowing he was too slow.
Two snarling wolven-hounds collided with the onrushing creature, knocking it off course, and it stumbled past Drem. Fen and Ralla, their jaws wide and biting, ripping chunks out of the Feral.
It came to a halt, twisting and spinning shockingly fast, its head catching Fen, hurling the wolven-hound into the air. Ralla snarled and threw herself onto the creature. Drem was on his feet now, rushing forwards, sword raised, and then Keld was there, sword and axe a blur, blood in the air.
The creature screamed, gurgled, legs spasming as it collapsed.
Keld wrenched his axe from the dead beast’s skull.
‘LASAIR!’ Byrne’s voice yelled behind Drem, and he turned to see her in the pit with them. Her sword was covered in blood, Ferals lying dead about her, and Utul was close by, chopping, slicing and stabbing at a trio of attackers. Byrne raised her hands and pointed towards an unlit torch upon the pit wall. It sparked into life, almost immediately followed by the one next to it, and then all of the torches in the chamber were bursting into flame, a wildfire chain reaction rippling around the huge cavern, light flaring bright.
The pit was revealed in its entirety: a broad stinking hole scattered with half-decomposed remains and hunger-mad creatures. One of the Ferals that appeared dead still moved, just raising its head where it lay, too emaciated and debilitated to move. Others had clearly been feeding on the weakest and were still strong.